The Hero
The Poly-Amorous Fairytale This is yet another detail I have taken and transformed from Kabbalistic philosophy (One can also find this in tarot, with the court cards). A famous Thelemic kabbalist lovingly calls it the 'incestuous fairytale'. In a simplistic sense (more simplistic when you understand the shape of the Tree of Life) The idea is that 'god' creates the father and the mother, who proceed to get all hot and bothered, get going on that nasty thang and have two children; a boy and a girl. The boy is placed upon the throne as the ruler of the universe, so that the mother and the father are free to waste their time licking each other up and down lusciously in paradise for all eternity; while the daughter finds herself flung all the way down to physical reality itself, the bonk on the head causing absolute amnesia. This Leaves her all alone in a physical world with no recollection of her majestic past. This is when things start to get a little nasty. To begin kabbalistic transformation, one must realize that they are that daughter. That they have been betrothed to their brother since before the beginning of time, yet their brother/husband cannot accept them until they can remember their divine lineage. So the process becomes a purification, getting ready for the great marriage of the daughter to the son, because once this happens, the son shall place the daughter onto the throne of the mother, assume the role of the father and will basically proceed to fuck like monkeys for eternity. This phenomena is called the Tetragrammaton in arcane circles, it is the original unspeakable four letter name of the Jewish god (commonly called Jehovah or Yahweh, but is comprised of the Hebrew equivalent of YHVH and is pronounced yo-ood hey vow hey) To start articulating the differences in the mechanic I'll start by uniting the four titles. The knights are the four sons, the labyrinths the daughters, the dragons the fathers and the princess's the mothers. The first major change is that the son and daughter switch roles, albeit both are much more connected to their great heritage. You may want to visualize a fairytale kingdom to fully understand the alchemy. The princess and the dragon (who are actually secretly lovers) get bored of their games one day so they decide to attract/create a bit of adventure to spice up their sex life (obviously I'm trying to make this a little less incestuous.) First they attract a lady friend who has a very interesting magical ability. She has the ability to transform herself into a physical place for the dragon and the princess to spend their time in and enjoy themselves until finally the dragon, the princess and the labyrinth create a vast kingdom together through their desire for one another until their kingdom becomes the stuff that legends are made of. This attracts yet another interesting character to the fray. A handsome knight, thirsty for adventure but a little on the oblivious side hears the tales and legends in his local taverns of a great kingdom ruled by a terrible dragon who holds captive a princess who's beauty and charm surpasses all the women of the land. Being a swashbuckling adventurous type, he sets out to save the princess and to overcome the treacherous labyrinth and dragon to save the fair maiden. Completely ignorant to the fact that these three characters have worked and hoped and prayed for just such a character to enter their kingdom, so as to totally fulfill all their outlandish sexual fantasies. The practical import of this visualization has to do with the division of aspects of the self in a given environment. The princess is that illusory outer thing that a person desires and the dragon is that inner resistance that does not allow them to possess it which is also overplayed onto the outer world. The labyrinth is a metaphor for the actual physical environments we traverse on our path to self realization and the knight is the conscious ego that is aware of it's free will. At lv. 0 the knight should be visualized as just stepping into the kingdom. Of course there is a few technical things that still need mentioning. It's important to realize exactly what a mythological dragon was back in those times of legend, which is not exactly a big scaly lizard beast. In actuality the lineage of the dragon myth comes from the world of the faeries and the fay folk. A dragon in this sense is basically the faery equivalent of a great spiritual being such as a yogi or a tibetan monk in human terms. A dragon has worked so hard at and understood the conundrum of life as a faery that he exists at the very peak of faery ability. Being able to transform at will even into physical forms that are percievable to human beings. One could then say that what the dragon 'is' is actually the princesses' very tangible imaginary friend; Analogous to how the Father was Jesus' imaginary friend. At this point I feel it is important to remind the adventurer of a very important point in the poly-amorous fairy-tale; the princess does not in any way need saving by the knight. That is why she chose to be with the dragon in the first place. In fact, the princess also so enjoys being in the presence of the lovely labyrinth that she is basically caught in a perpetual state of bliss; which is only intensified by the knights quest to save her from tyranny. Yet if and when the knight finally moves to emancipate the princess he is awestruck to hear that she loves being exactly where she is. In this sense it is also important to realize that dragon is in no way antagonistic to the knight, he just knows that the knight came to his kingdom to have and adventure, and thus he is more than happy to oblige him. also he knows what his lady; or should I say ladies, want, and works hard to please the hell out of them. The knight becomes surprised to discover that his dangerous adventure was in no way dangerous at all, but instead a loving game between comrades, with a mate chosen especially for his adventurous spirit (the labyrinth.) Still, most knights are the daring sort, so a world with no real danger can quickly become dull. So eventually most knights leaves his paradise, always knowing he has a home full of love in the depths of the poly-amorous fairy-tale. One final note, for completeness, it's not a single kingdom, but four separate neighboring kingdoms which are intimately entangled with one another, each with its own knight entering at the same instant. I just wanted to place all the information out there, as this story is probably going to be rewritten and edited over and over again. The numbers go clockwise around the diagram. The Four Knights (the outer sphere) relates to The Initiate 1.Indulge 2.Wonder 3.Investigate 4.Try The Four Labyrinths (the middle sphere) relates to The Monk 1.Description 2.Exploration 3.Security 4.Want The Four Dragons (the four directions) relates to The Adept 1.Attraction 2.Definition 3.Protection 4.Saturation The Four Princesses (the inner sphere) relates to The Shaman 1.Pleasure 2.Success 3.Intimacy 4.Satisfaction The Final Power of the Hero =Agency= Links Character Classes Life Mythology The Mechanics home